"Even if he had been kind to her; but he was false to her again and again. I almost believe, too, she loved him all the more every time. Then the last thing happened. I thought now it must either break or bear. The Lord, too, would not have him going about any longer; and so he fell a little more heavily than I meant him to do. I never saw him afterwards."
They sat silent for a while; then Baard went on:
"I once more made my offer. She said neither yes nor no; but I thought she would like me better afterwards. So we were married. The wedding was kept down in the valley, at the house of one of her aunts, whose property she inherited. We had plenty when we started, and it has now increased. Our estates lay side by side, and when we married they were thrown into one, as I always, from a boy, thought they might be. But many other things didn't turn out as I expected." He was silent for several minutes; and Arne thought he wept; but he did not.
"In the beginning of our married life, she was quiet and very sad. I had nothing to say to comfort her, and so I was silent. Afterwards, she began sometimes to take to these fidgeting ways which you have, I dare say, noticed in her; yet it was a change, and so I said nothing then, either. But one really happy day, I haven't known ever since I was married, and that's now twenty years...."
He broke the stick in two pieces; and then sat for a while looking at them.
"When Eli grew bigger, I thought she would be happier among strangers than at home. It was seldom I wished to carry out my own will in anything, and whenever I did, it generally turned out badly; so it was in this case. The mother longed after her child, though only the lake lay between them; and afterwards I saw, too, that Eli's training at the parsonage was in some ways not the right thing for her; but then it was too late: now I think she likes neither father nor mother."
He had taken off his cap again; and now his long hair hung down over his eyes; he stroked it back with both hands, and put on his cap as if he were going away; but when, as he was about to rise, he turned towards the house, he checked himself and added, while looking up at the bed-room window.
"I thought it better that she and Mathilde shouldn't see each other to say good-bye: that, too, was wrong. I told her the wee bird was dead; for it was my fault, and so I thought it better to confess; but that again was wrong. And so it is with everything: I've always meant to do for the best, but it has always turned out for the worst; and now things have come to such a pass that both wife and daughter speak ill of me, and I'm going here lonely."
A servant-girl called out to them that the dinner was becoming cold. Baard rose. "I hear the horses neighing; I think somebody has forgotten them," he said, and went away to the stable to give them some hay.
Arne rose, too; he felt as if he hardly knew whether Baard had been speaking or not.